Designing ships...

[Resan]

It seams like they use your design and replace it with the newer tech. I have a costume design for every class and base and upgrade works. It does change the name which is annoying like hell.[:@]

[JasmoVT]

My experience is the auto design does not keep arms on non military craft when it upgrades. Given the prevalence of pirates and space bugs, it would be nice if you could indicate design by design what you want to auto design and what you want to do yourself.

[jscott991]

Did any of these concerns improve with 1.0.3?

[Gertjan]

It became better to handle ships and also designing a bit, since the screen was improved. In the beta of 1.4, military ships will have by default a solar collector. Which is perfect. However, I might still feed the need to add some additional fuel cells to reduce the need for refuelling.

In addition, it seems that it is important to check that the ships have sufficient reserve power, otherwise either your weapons are not used to their full extent or your ships will not fly as fast as the could (I dont know which constraint bites first, someone does?) I dont know if this is a major problem and happens often, but I noticed some micro loving ship designing players mentioning this. Perhaps they can help us will good advice!

[Fishman]

ORIGINAL: Gertjan

In addition, it seems that it is important to check that the ships have sufficient reserve power, otherwise either your weapons are not used to their full extent or your ships will not fly as fast as the could (I dont know which constraint bites first, someone does?)

They both sort of bite simultaneously: What will happen is that your ship's energy pool goes to zero, but most likely your reactors are capable of generating fuel fast enough for continuous draw engines to pull down power and keep working, while guns, which draw power in chunks, will find the energy pool to be insufficient and thus fail to fire.

[Gertjan]

Thanks Fishman. Do you a link to a post which goes in detail about this issue? I'd like to know how to properly design my ships (since the Ai could do a better job).